Pancakes
by chakramrain
Summary: Caleb Rivers is gone and Hanna Marin is torn. So Spencer Hastings and Hanna Marin make pancakes at about three in the morning, because that's what people do when they're pretending not to be depressed. Hanna needs solace for a night and a bewildered Spencer provides willing lips to receive Hanna's. It cannot be, but the sometimes it must, for a time.


People are beautiful masks and masks break. The capture of a shot where a mask seems shattered is what Hanna has. Only, the pieces are voluntarily finding each other again and not rendering themselves useless. Hanna Marin is folding herself into a crane from a languidly distant piece of coloured paper because Caleb Rivers has been pulled into the hurricane of Ravenwood and Hanna is in the eye of the hurricane.

Spencer helps. She lets Hanna sit upon the countertop of the Hastings's kitchen, letting her tell her friend stupid, ditzy things and baking disaster after disaster. For a week they chalk up a reality in which 'A' is non-existent. That or she's rotted from the stench of wearing the red coat for about a year without visiting a Laundromat. Either way the atmosphere is tensely idiotic, idiotically agonising.

"It's a spatula, Hanna, no need to send it to the depths of the planet's mantle," Spencer spews, grabbing the utensil from the blonde nincompoop and flipping the forming pancake.

"I'll do what I like."

Spencer almost collapses, but she finds her confidence once more. Stepping behind Hanna, Spencer takes a slim wrist in her palm, guiding it to the pan's rubber handle. Together they toss the flapjacks into the air and catch the things. Hanna nearly squeals with delight and Spencer scoops the bubbling batter into her palm, ensuring that it has set. Satisfied, she plates them and Hanna looks for whipped cream, because Hanna will be Hanna.

Maple syrup is drizzled upon Spencer's stack and she digs into the meal first, unsure of the reason she's having pancakes at two in the morning.

"So, how are you?" Spencer asks tentatively.

Hanna almost spouts something seemingly pensive of her mood, but she mutters, "great."

Spencer swallows, "and I'll be a monkey's uncle."

Her friend offers her a disturbed expression and Spencer accepts it, rolling her eyes in her skull.

"I'll be fine, Spence," Hanna insists, "nothing like tons of ice-cream to bring up 'Hefty Hanna' again, huh?"

Spencer nods, spearing the last of her pancakes and throwing it about her plate, "if we halve it I'll be 'Super-sized Spencer'. I'll take the chocolate."

Blonde-haired Hanna Marin takes her fingers, bedazzled with complementary accessories, through her tresses and stares up at a friend so laden with responsibility it seems that her shoulders are sagging. And for a bit, she smiles. The smile is weak and tired, but it's a genuine smile of camaraderie.

"I've missed you," she says.

"I've been here all the time," Spencer has her eyebrows scrunched together, forehead wrinkled from confusion at Hanna's latest confession.

"Yeah, but _we_ haven't. Just us, you know?"

For this spare moment of silence there are no interrupting ringtones or beeping cell-phones. In fact, the silence is a strange thing to be rewarded with and for once it is not stocked with tension in a rubber-band. Hanna pulls herself across the marble, knees on a stool and elbows on the table. She leans over and Spencer tries to take in the sudden action.

"Hanna."

"Hey Spencer," Hanna laughs airily, noiselessly as she wraps an arm about Spencer's neck, places pressure on the back of it and tilts her head.

Their lips meet sweetly and quietly. Their noses brush at each other and Spencer finally brings a hand towards Hanna's face, putting the falling hair behind her ear and thumbing her jaw. Cheek-to-jowl they are and Hanna continues to press forward. When they come up for air Spencer almost falls backwards in horror. Hanna only looks like a child who's had her hand in the cookie jar and is now admiring the glass bowl of gumballs.

"Hanna!" Spencer says again, but punctuates her tone with an inflection.

"Why, Spencer," Hanna mutters, "loosen up."

"Loosen _up?_"

Hanna catches Spencer's chin and tucks herself into Spencer's arms again. She pecks Spencer on the mouth and then sits back down.

"Yeah, what I said."

Spencer almost sighs, if not for the affection she has for the idiot opposite her. She motions for them to ascend the stairs and follows a hopping Hanna warily, grumbling about nonsensical things under her breath. When Hanna makes an abrupt stop at the staircase's landing Spencer's fingers come up to waiting hips.

For once Spencer is speechless, not harried with speech impediment symptoms or worried about something usually considered useless. And Toby Cavanaugh is absent from the picture, making everything much easier.

"Spencer, help me."

"With?"

"Myself, help me with me," Hanna leads her up, "everything's a mess."

"It's not. I love you, Hanna. Keep with the times and keep up with me."

Hanna places her forehead against Spencer's chest as they fall into the bed and flip on the television, Hanna drowning out the white noise and static. The hot tears almost overwhelm her and spill from the jar, but Spencer catches them before they fall and Hanna puts her arms around a taller, reliable being.

It cannot be, but the ways of the world make an exception for a night.


End file.
